February 15, 2022.
Tag: Bioware
Bioware Has Cancelled Anthem’s Revival
Anthem Finally Getting That Overhaul We’ve Heart Rumors About
It’s been a while since we last heard from Anthem.
Hard to believe Anthem launched nearly a year ago next week but it’s been pretty quiet on the western front with Bioware not doing a whole lot of updating to the game. It’s been so quiet in fact that people noticed Bioware hasn’t taken down the Christmas decorations, despite being nearly Valentine’s Day. Speculation has run rampant over the past few months, with signs pointing to Bioware working on an overhaul for Anthem that would address many of the bigger gripes of the player base.
Well that overhaul has been confirmed in case you didn’t read the title of this article. Bioware has posted an updated blog confirming that the team is still alive and working on Anthem and will be focusing on a long term redesign, with attention being paid to the core gameplay loop.
“Over the coming months we will be focusing on a longer-term redesign of the experience, specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges and progression with meaningful rewards – while preserving the fun of flying and fighting in a vast science-fantasy setting. And to do that properly we’ll be doing something we’d like to have done more of the first time around – giving a focused team the time to test and iterate, focusing on gameplay first.”
There will be updates for Anthem as the team works toward the redesign, with events and store refreshes coming but the game moving away from seasons for the time being.
Source: Anthem
[NM] Kotaku Investigates Bioware, Bioware Makes It Worse
The only constants in life are death and taxes. The only constants in the gaming industry are EA (or a subsidiary) creating its own PR nightmare and then making the situation worse in response.
If you’ve been following the tale of Anthem and its alleged six year development cycle, today’s investigative piece by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier may not be that surprising to you. Titled “How Bioware’s Anthem Went Wrong,” Schreier talks to no less than 19 ex-Bioware employees who had been involved in the development of the game. The story is a tale of ineffective leadership, understaffed teams, and various departments either unwilling or unable to work together to put a cohesive and thought out plan together. While EA may tout that the game has been in the works for six years, according to employees the majority of the game was built in the last 12-16 months.
Bioware responded with a very stern letter to the public addressing the article. The response is quite baffling as the developer hides behind its declared passion for its customers, concluding with a thinly veiled attack at Kotaku that the article exposing Bioware’s poor working conditions and indifferent management is somehow a detriment to the industry and craft.
“People in this industry put so much passion and energy into making something fun. We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better.”
And here’s the kicker; You may notice that the letter from Bioware doesn’t actually address any of the specific statements made in Kotaku’s article. That’s because Bioware’s response went up mere minutes after Kotaku published their piece. The folks responding to the article didn’t even bother to read it, and it also means that they had this pre-written and ready to go.
How fitting that a company accused of being tone deaf would be so tone deaf as to so blatantly not read the article that they are dismissively responding to. The management at Bioware either naively thinks that this response is going to pull the public to their side, or they are so deep in denial that they don’t see how bizarre the response comes off as.
Source: Kotaku
Falling Out #5: The Best Laid Plans
And they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky Reddit nerds.
Anthem Is Hard-Crashing On Playstation 4
Anthem on PS4 may be more of a hazard than previously known.
A growing number of users on the official Reddit have begun reporting issues regarding Anthem not just crashing, but completely shutting down their Playstation 4. The thread has garnered a number of confirmations from other players noting that the system treats the shutdown as though the player had pulled the power cable.
“When encountering a crash or game error, sometimes I get booted to the main menu or out of the game completely to the PS4 dashboard. But twice now when trying to matchmake my PS4 has completely turned off. Don’t worry about the loot patch ffs, sort the bugs out first please”
For their part, Sony is apparently still denying refunds to a large portion of people despite the game being broken, possibly to the extent of risking damage to consoles. EA/Bioware are apparently aware of the problem but have not released a statement.
Source: Reddit
Falling Out #2: The Ghost of Christmas Obvious
Given the history of Electronic Arts, the only thing I’m worried about is the date on the gravestone being too far into the future.
Scenery © 2012-2013 Julien Jorge <julien.jorge@stuff-o-matic.com>
Gravestones: Carlo Enrico Victoria (Nemisys) & Tuomo Untinen, Casper Nilsson, Barbara Rivera
(Via Open Game Art)
PSA: Get the Old Republic Expansions Free With This Code (Limited Time)
If you’ve been holding off on the Star Wars: The Old Republic expansions for a while now, your patience has officially paid out. To celebrate the launch of Knights of the Old Republic on Xbox One, Bioware is giving away both Old Republic expansions to anyone who uses a simple code by the time the promotion ends. The code is REVANRETURNS and can be redeemed at this link, and if you’re into things like free mounts, you can also get your hands on a free speeder with the code KOTORSPEEDER.
Codes expire Monday, November 6, 2017 at 11:59PM PST / Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 7:59PM GMT. The promotional code includes Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan
(Source: The Old Republic)
And Then There Were 5: The Old Republic Merges Servers
Star Wars: The Old Republic has come a long way since its 2011 launch, and Bioware has plenty in store for the game going forward. Details regarding the upcoming United Forces update hit the official website today, and a big part of the update involves merging the seventeen remaining servers down to five. There will be two North American and three European servers, one for English, French, and German in the latter category.
The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language. Our goal is to make this experience as simple and rewarding as possible.
The FAQ goes into detail in regards to legacy ranks, achievements, and more. Premium subscribers who have more than 52 characters per server following the merge will be accommodated for but will be unable to create new characters as long as they are above the limit. Free players will have all characters above the 2 per server limit deactivated.
Currently, a Premium (Subscriber) account is allowed a maximum of 52 characters per server. Following the United Forces update, accounts with more than 52 characters on a server will be accommodated. You will still be able to access and play each of those characters. However, if you wish to make any new characters after that point, you will need to delete characters until you are back at or below the cap of 52. For Free-to-Play accounts, this process will work a little differently. Following the United Forces update, if your account has characters beyond the Free-to-Play limit of 2, then all your characters will be set to ‘deactivated’. This allows you to log in and choose which characters you would like to activate and play.
Bioware’s announcement of the mergers has received some criticism from players on Role Playing servers being merged into standard servers.
(Source: The Old Republic)
The Old Republic Story Continues March
Bioware has announced that the next chapter in the Knights of the Fallen Empire story will launch on March 10th. Titled Disavowed, the new story content brings back Major Jorgan to assist the player deep behind enemy lines. It will be up to you to decide how far the Major can go.
Disavowed will be available for free to subscribers, with an HK-55 helmet given out to anyone who subscribes by March 1st. New players can jump right in with a level 60 character.
(Source: Bioware Press Release)
MMO Fallout 